Blurple

 Note:  The ABL was a women's basketball league which started in 1996, the same year that the WNBA was founded.  The Quest was Columbus, Ohio's ABL team.)


"Ellie? Ellie, honey, come look at this!" said a voice, barely tickling my consciousness. Ignoring it, I focused again on the ABL post-game wrap-up. Sonja Tate of the Columbus Quest was saying, in a pumped-up baskeball pro way, that it was cooperation which had gotten the Quest its second ABL championship. The voice came back, calling my name again.

"What is it?" I said, which really meant "Why are you talking to me when I'm watching television?"
I got up, not really expecting an answer. I put the remote on the seat of the recliner and went back toward the family room, looking for my girlfriend. Margaret had been using her problem voice, the one which was two levels short of panic. The house wasn't on fire, our son hadn't been knocked unconscious, but something was definitely wrong.

I stuck my head into the kitchen. There was a pot of something steaming away on the stove, but no Margaret. I walked through the kitchen, turning left at the refrigerator. No, the utility room door was shut so she wouldn't be in there. I went back and tried the family room, and found Margaret's rear end pointing up at me. She was kneeling next to the wall unit, near the fish tank, looking at the worn carpet.

"What's up?" I said.

Margaret didn't raise her head. She patted at the carpet, then rubbing her fingers together and smelled them.

"Something wrong with the rug?" I said.

"It's leaking," said my girlfriend, using the edge of the wall unit to pull herself up from the floor. She groaned a little and rubbed her left knee. "The fish tank is leaking."

"The aquarium's leaking? Where?" I stuck my head into the wall unit opening, and gave a quick look around the sides of the twenty-gallon tank. "Looks okay to me. Maybe Justin spilled his sippy cup or something."

"No, it smells bad right down here," said Margaret. "It's not juice, it's definitely a fishy kind of stinky—"

"Okay, I'll look again," I said. In the front room, I heard basketball fans roaring as the replay of Pee Wee Johnson's buzzer-beater was shown. Damn, I had been sitting in that recliner for twenty minutes just to see that again. Well, it was over now. I stuck my head back inside the wall unit, and took a good look behind the aquarium. "Oh, geez," I said, pulling my head out again quickly.

"What?" said Margaret anxiously, at the same time as a a long, siren-like wail came from the stairway.

"Mommmeeee!" Justin sobbed, as he ran toward us in his two-year-old way, stiff like a gingerbread boy, making little scuffs in his footsie pajamas. I wasn't sure which Mommy Justin wanted, but as I was closest to the door, I held out my arms and he jumped into them. "Oh, man, Justie-wustie, your bottom's all wet!" I said, pulling my arm away and looking at my darkened sleeve. "Have you got a poopie in your pants?"

"Shouldn't have," said Margaret, a little defensively. "I changed him right after dinner and he had a poop then, and then I changed him again right before bed."

"Mmmmbbbtt," sobbed my son, crushing his face into my shoulder.

"What, honey?" said Margaret.  She leaned over to rub his back.

"My beddd!" howled Justin, directly into Margaret's ear.

Margaret stepped back and clapped her hand over her ear. "Ow," she said. "Your bed?
What's the matter with it?"

"All wetttttt!" said Justin, totally exasperated now. He hammered his fists into my upper back and stuck his snotty nose against my neck.

"Oh man, oh no," I said. "Here, take him!" I handed off Justin to his other mom, who looked confused. I ran out of the family room, and down the hall to Justin's room. I clunked my head on his sun-and-moon mobile as I moved through the dark. I clicked on the Barney lamp and looked around. Yep, a dark, oily, dripping stain crept across the floor my son's bed.  The top sheet was askew, one corner dragging on the floorboards.  The corner of the shet had wicked the wetness up  and his blankets, and sheets were spotted with dark moisture.

I ran back toward the kitchen, nearly knocking down Margaret, who was bringing Justin down the hall. "No, no, go back!" I said. "Put him in his popsicle shirt and get a movie going for him, then come help me!"

I dashed into the kitchen and looked for the deadbolt key on top of the spice rack. The key ring had fallen behind the oregano, and while I was shifting jars, I felt a big whump behind my knees. "It's okay, Daisy," I said. "Go lie down."

Daisy had gotten up from her folded blanket under the dining room table, and she run into the backs of my knees.  She was now turning her gray muzzle from side to side in a baffled way. Her milky eyes weren't any use, so she gave up, plumped her fat dog butt down on the linoleum and started to moo.

Other dogs howled when upset, but Daisy did an excellent cow imitation, rounding her dog lips into a perfect pucker and then letting out a "Mooooo!" which could be heard in the next county. I dropped the key ring back on the counter, went to the refrigerator, and got out a can of Miller Draft. The vet had said that 17-year-old Daisy could go any day now, and that the poor old thing was basically a little crazy now. We had our choice. We could put her to sleep, give her dog tranquilizers, or give her a few spoonfuls of beer when she needed calming. I grabbed a dirty tablespoon from the counter top, popped open the beer can, and knelt down by Daisy's water dish. I began beating on the metal dish with the tablespoon and calling "Daisy! Beer! Here's your beer, Daisy!" After a moment or two, Daisy felt the whang whang whang of the spoon on the dish, and she waddled over. I poured a slosh of beer into the dish and put the can down on the floor.

I grabbed the key ring from the counter, unlocked the back door, and ran out to the garage. The light didn't come on when I flicked the switch, so I pounded on a wall stud with my fist and and the overhead bulb began to glow. I grabbed the lawn mower and shoved it out of the way. I moved a rake, a shovel, and half a bag of Quikrete. Then I found  the car camper carrier, and unlatched the top half. I dragged the carrier top up over the lawn implements and out of the garage. The lid was dirty and had a black fuzzy thing on one edge.  I told myself that the tickle on my wrist was not a big hairy spider jumping off to bite me.

I banged through the back door with the carrier top, and dragged it through the kitchen, startling Daisy, who mooed once and ran under the table to hide. As I turned the comer into the hallway, I knocked over the can of Miller Draft, which began gurgling over the vinyl tiles.

"Shit," I said, but I kept going.

Margaret was standing between me and the family room, holding some terrycloth rags. "Margaret, honey, move!" I said, and she moved into the doorway of the family room. "No, no, I want to go in there!" I said. Margaret backed up quickly and I pulled the huge plastic carrier top into the room. "Okay, now let's get the tank in here!"

"Moommmeee, the movie's overrrr!" yelled Justin from the other room.

"Okay, honey!" I yelled. I gestured at Margaret in a way which was supposed to mean "I'll be right back," but she looked totally at a loss.

In the living room, Justin was sitting in the recliner, sucking his thumb and glaring at the  snowy television screen. "I'll rewind it," I said, bending own and opening the cabinet doors.

"And I wan’ moh waysins," said my son, his mouth full. He was eating chocolate raisins, and his lower face was smeared brown. Margaret had taken his wet pajamas off, and he was now wearing a clean diaper and his popsicle shirt with small chocolate fingerprints near the hem. Margaret and I both loathed this shirt because it featured the Power Rangers, and because a permanent grapey stripe ran down the front as a result of a popsicle drip which hadn't been stain-treated before washing.

"No more raisins, buddy," I said. The DVD player clicked and I hit "Play" on the remote.

The Bananas in Pajamas began looking for their missing wheelbarrow, and I left my protesting son behind. In the hallway, I ran into Margaret, coming up the stairs with an armload of Justin's wet sheets.

"Put those in the washer to soak," I ordered, in total Patton mode now.

"Can't," Margaret said, refusing to make eye contact. "Washer's already full. I'll put them in the tub and run water over them."

I went back to the family room and marched resolutely to the aquarium. I unhooked the connections at the back, hard to do because everything was wet, slimy and slippery. As I was lifting the tank out of its place, Margaret came up behind me and said, "Don't hurt your back."

"I won't," I said. "I'll bend my knees." I carefully lowered the tank into the upturned carrier lid. "Just a sec," I told Margaret, who had gone to look into the depths of the wall unit.

In a flash I was back with vinyl electrical tape and I used it to cover the cracked plastic part where the water seeped out of the tank. "Okay, that'll be okay for tonight," I said.

Margaret had a rag in each hand and was wiping vigorously at the wall unit and the wall itself. "The drywall's all wet," she said, "and it ran under the wall, and the floor in Justin's room is wet."

"I know," I snapped. "I was in there already, remember."

"Well, don't bite my head off, Ellie," said Margaret. "It's not my fault. You were in watching t.v. and you wouldn't have even known—"

"So I was watching the basketball finals," I said. "So what? It's Friday night, and I worked all week. I need a break, and I think I deserve to watch a little— What's that smell? Is something burning?"

Margaret didn't say a word. She disappeared into the kitchen, and a few moments later, I saw her, holding a quilted potholder around the handle of the smoking saucepan whiz by. I heard the front door open, then close again.

Margaret came back and stood in the doorway of the family room. "I put the rice pot out on the porch," she said. " I was getting ready to take it off the stove, and then I heard this noise in the family room that went blurple, blurple. And then when I went in, the tank had big air bubbles coming up and I forgot the rice. Good thing the smoke detector didn't go off, huh?"

"Should have," I said. I went into the kitchen and got a chair. Margaret followed me as I carried the chair down the hall and placed it under the detector.

"Did you know there was beer on the kitchen floor?" said my girlfriend.

"Yeah, Daisy was mooing so I gave her a little, then I knocked the can over," I said. "I'll mop it up in a minute." I took the detector cover off, and accidentally touched the battery. The next thing I knew,
I was temporarily deaf in my left ear, and I was half-stting, half-lying on the overturned chair, which had wedged itself in the narrow hallway. "Damn, that was loud," I said.

"You okay?" said Margaret, helping me up.

"Yeah," I said. "Guess the battery was just loose. Geez."

I looked up to see Justin, who was fidgeting, with his hands over his ears. "Too NOSY!"

Margaret and I laughed. "Was it nosy, honey?" said my partner, scooping up our sticky child. She sniffed. "You really did do a poopie this time, didn't you?"

I turned in my sleep and buried my head in the sofa cushion, but the noise wouldn't go away. Bing-bong. Bing-bong.

Justin, who was lying on top of me and drooling into my hair, raised his head, then poked me. "What iz zat, mommy?"

"Dunno," I said at the same time as Margaret said "Doorbell."

"Oh, doorbell," I said. I sat up. We were all sleeping on sofa cushions in the living room because Justin's bed was wet and the back part of the house was too stinky to endure.

Justin was pointing to the front door. He was still wearing his popsicle shirt, and while Margaret had gotten some of the chocolate raisin residue off his face, there was still a brown crust on his chin. "Kid, you need a bath," I said. I got up, buttoned the waistband of my jeans, and smoothed my hair down with my hands. I went to the front door and opened it.

Oprah Winfrey was standing on my front porch. She was surrounded my five or six other people, two of whom were holding microphones. Another man had a big black camera on his shoulder and he was pointing the lens at the burned pot of rice sitting next to my front door.

"Hi, how you doin'?" said Oprah.

"Hi, I'm good, I guess," I said. I stepped out onto the porch and shut the storm door. "Are you Oprah Winfrey?"

"Sure am," she said, turning to twinkle for the camera. "We are doing one of our drop-in visits, are you familiar with those from our show? We get suggestions from people on nice families to drop in on, and since this is Gay Pride Week, we wanted to celebrate a special family! Your friends Pam and Rose suggested you, and here they are!"

Pam and Rose, dressed better than I had ever seen them, appeared from behind the tech crew and grinned at me. "Hey, Ellie," said Pam. "Open the door and let Oprah in!"

"Sure," I said, smiling weakly. I opened the storm door, and a mix of stale beer, burned food, and foul aquarium stink wafted out. I stuck my head in, and said, "Margaret, heony? You might want to put some pants on."